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by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1298584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you are given a second chance.  Sometimes a decision has to be made.</p>
            </blockquote>





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One night, several months after everything falls apart, after the true depth of Mary’s betrayal is revealed, after she leaves and takes the other man’s child with her, John makes a realization.

He has been given something—something that most people never get. 

He has been given a second chance.

If Mrs. Hudson is surprised to see him when he shows up at the door to 221b Baker Street, she gives no indication.  She smiles.  They exchange pleasantries, and John heads upstairs.

Sherlock is playing the violin.

“Hello, John.”  Sherlock doesn’t bother to turn away from the window or set down his instrument.  “To what do I owe the rare honor?”

John isn’t sure (he’s never sure with Sherlock), but he thinks he hears a touch of passive-aggressive sarcasm in the man’s tone.

“I wanted to ask you something.  It’s kind of a big deal.”

Sherlock continues to play—says nothing.   But he does turn a little to look briefly at John, eyes sliding down his body and back up to his eyes, once, before turning back to the window.

“I’m selling the flat.  I—I need to be back in Central London.  I can’t afford it on my salary, so…”

Sherlock plays on.

“So, I—I was wondering if I could move back here—with you.”

The violin goes silent.  Sherlock turns, his dressing gown billowing out behind him as he crouches to return the instrument to its case.  He sets it on the floor and then settles into his chair, tenting his fingers beneath his lips.  “Why?”

John smiles slightly in confusion.  “I’ve told you why.  I need to be back in Central London, and…”

“Why do you need to be back in Central London?”  Sherlock insists, a brow arched in question.

John opens his mouth, closes it again.  Sherlock has changed so much since his ‘death’ three years ago and even more so since the thing with Moriarty.  Sometimes John isn’t sure he knows how to approach this new Sherlock.  He is just as mercilessly tactless and straightforward as before, but somehow more honest—earnest.  It isn’t a language John speaks.

John tries again.  “ _Needs_ might have been the wrong word.”

Something behind Sherlock’s eyes shifts.  He looks—different.  Younger?  Hope?  It’s hope. 

John can barely bring himself to believe that he might still be welcome after everything.

“Sherlock…”  John clears his throat, trying to work out the tightness he inexplicably and unexpectedly feels there.  “In all honesty…  That neighborhood—it was never what I wanted.  I don’t want to be there.  There’s nothing for me there.  It’s just an empty flat, and not even one I like.”

Sherlock nods once, but his eyes are probing John’s to the point where it is starting to become unsettling.  He nods toward John’s old chair. “Sit.  I’ll have Mrs. Hudson bring up tea.”

“Don’t bother her.  I’ll make it.”  He realizes his mistake in an instant.  So presumptuous.  But, Sherlock simply shrugs.

“If you prefer.”

John is grateful for the distraction.  He can feel Sherlock’s eyes on him as he moves about the kitchen.  Everything is where it should be.  Sherlock has moved it all back—back to the way they had it before Mary came—and Janine.

And then suddenly Sherlock is there, right at his shoulder as he leans over to plug in the kettle.  He jumps a little and turns.  “Jesus!  Wha—what are you…?”

Sherlock doesn’t move.   He just stands there, so close John doesn’t have a choice but to press his lower spine hard against the counter to avoid making contact with—well with Sherlock—all of him.  The counter is hard, and cold, and the pain in his spine is building, and still Sherlock just stares.  John blinks back up, questioningly.

He can feel Sherlock deducing.  He is deducing him.

John considers asking him to move.  He considers just ducking to the left and escaping the warm, human cage that is Sherlock. 

Sherlock’s eyes zip back and forth.  They move over John’s face.  They look at the furrows and wrinkles that three years of hell have etched there. They slip over the soft angles of his jaw, to the curve of his throat, they move up, they linger, they linger on his lips.

And John knows in this minute, that there is a decision to be made.  One he has been skirting around the edges of for a lifetime.  And he knows now.  He knows what he wants—what he needs. 

The kettle behind them is starting to hiss, and John fumbles around behind him, shuts it off pushes it aside.

Sherlock’s eyes have stopped.  They’ve chosen his.  Everything has grown quiet.  Sherlock, always a maelstrom of conflicting thoughts, energies, is only still.

John reaches out, one hand to the center of Sherlock’s chest.  He pushes lightly.  Just a small bit of pressure, but it is enough to make something shift behind Sherlock’s eyes.  He steps back, he looks away, and he is going to leave.

John hoists himself quickly onto the counter top, and Sherlock looks up, stares, brow furrowed.

“Come here,” John orders softly.

Sherlock doesn’t even hesitate.  He moves into the V John’s legs make as they open to him.  He accepts the sensation of John’s fingers as they weave into that frankly unfathomable tangle of curls.  Sherlock’s eyes slide shut as John tilts down and presses his forehead against his.

“I want to come home,” John murmurs.  “Please…”

Sherlock’s eyes open and there are—Jesus, there are tears there.  He nods.

When John kisses him Sherlock makes the tiniest of sounds, something between a gasp and a choked sob, and John never doubts his choice for a minute.  He feels the rightness in it, in the salt he can taste on Sherlock’s lips and in the unpracticed, tender way Sherlock explores his mouth.

There will be years of this, now—years of warmth, and want, and discovery to make up for all those years of loss and pain.  Everything is right in this moment. 

Everything. 

John never looks back.


End file.
